Wolters Kluwer Health
may email you for journal alerts and information, but is committed
to maintaining your privacy and will not share your personal information without
your express consent. For more information, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common cause of nontraumatic neurological disability in young adults. MS lesions can occur in both the gray and white matter of the central nervous system and due to the variable distribution of demyelination, people with MS may experience a wider variety of symptoms than any other neurological disease, including problems with strength and balance.

PURPOSE

METHODS

Four female and one male MS subjects (age: 41.2 (12.6) y; height: 1.66 (0.08) m; mass: 70.2 (11.7) kg; EDSS = 3.6 (1.7)) participated in a progressive strength training program 2 times/wk for 16 wks under supervision. To assess balance pre- and post-training, subjects were monitored while standing on a force platform (sampled at 40 Hz) as steady as possible in 4 different stance conditions: feet 15.2 cm apart (F), feet 15.2 cm apart on a foam pad (P), semitandem (S), and tandem (T). Two trials lasting 20 sec were conducted for each stance. The center-of-pressure (COP) was tracked for all trials and the average COP path length, and the amplitudes in the mediolateral (ML) and antero-posterior (AP) directions over the two trials were calculated for each stance. Nonparametric Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks tests were performed to examine the training effect (α = 0.05).